Friday 4 th August - Revigny-sur-Ornain to Pargny-sur-Saulx

An extra hour in bed this morning - just as well as Crew woke at 8 a.m. and promptly went back to sleep until almost nine o'clock!  So we left around 10 a.m. on a windy day with alternate sun and cloud.  when we came across our sixth lock we were surprised to be upon the lock without using our zapper to operate it......it seems that there is a sensor arrangement now!  There is very little traffic on the Canal - we have only had two cruisers travelling in the opposite direction all day and as there are no hire boat ports, no 'noddy boats' around.......always a bonus!  We did pass one commercial barge who was stationary with some sort of engine problem I think but that's the only commerce we have seen this cruise.
All went well until our final lock just before Pargny!  We entered as normal and waited for quite some time for the water level to start descending......it obviously wasn't going to do it so Skip called up the VNF on the intercom.  Fifteen minutes later, he called again and a young man arrived after ten minutes or so and got us underway.  Unfortunately there was then no space for us to moor on the quay so a nice Swiss couple invited us to raft alongside them.  The weather has been very mixed for this leg of our cruise (we had much better weather in May and June) but the afternoon was sunny and warm so we enjoyed our lunch on deck.  After a rest, Skip did his usual recce and came back saying that the little town was nothing special but did have two boulangeries.  The only restaurant was adjacent to the port, so Skip booked us a table for the evening.
We had an excellent meal, with second to none service.......the owner clearly in love with his job!
TV and bed.

15 km 12 locks 4 1/2 hours